The return of the Big Society

It’s back. David Cameron is re-launching the Big Society, the least captivating idea in British politics. There is nothing wrong with the central idea: the grand plan to decentralise power to local communities. Terminology was a problem. The Big Society sounded infantile and patronising. The detail was lost in a morass of wonkery. The overall vision was contradictory: ‘people power’ was the end, community organisers were the means.

The authors of the Big Society erroneously assumed that people care about community. But community is a turn-off for many, and the Big Society sounded like one enormous management meeting from which there is no escape. From Westmoreland to Richmond-upon-Thames, voters hated it.

The terminology has not changed, and neither has the over-emphasis on community. But that no longer matters because enacting an idea only you understand is far easier than selling it. Today in Liverpool, Cameron will introduce a funding mechanism, the Big Society Bank, which will enable charities and social action groups (whatever they are) to raid dormant bank accounts to fund local infrastructure and other projects.